LM GTE Pro: Ferrari one-two on the banks of the river Santerno

Ferrari’s adventure in the Imola 6 Hours, the fourth round of the Le Mans Series and also of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup ended with a one-two finish. Honours in the GTE Pro class were hotly contested with the top spot going to the AF Corse 458 Italia GT2, driven by Jaime Melo and Toni Vilander, who led home the sister car of Giancarlo Fisichella and Gianmaria Bruni and in third place, the BMW M3 driven by Augusto Farfus and Jörg Müller.

With fifty minutes to go, the two red cars were solidly in the lead, with these two top places seeing Ferrari moving into the lead of the Constructors’ classification and consolidating AF Corse’s advantage in the Teams category. Fisichella and Bruni were particularly pleased, having staged a major fight back after a difficult start, which had seem them leave the line from seventh on the grid. “We definitely could have won, but for an electrical problem which affected our car during the final laps,” said Fisichella. “But I am nevertheless very happy with this result for me and for the whole team. The way qualifying went did not lessen our expectations, as we knew we could do well and we proved that to be true. The entire team was exceptional as usual.”

Those in the GTE Am category were less fortunate: the Marco Cioci, Piergiuseppe Perazzini and Stephane Lemeret F430 GT2 started from second, but had to settle for a fourth place finish behind the two Porsche 911s of Raymond Narac-Nicolas Armindo and Patrick Long –Gianluca Roda and the Corvette C6 of Patrick Bornhauser – Julien Canal – Gabriele Gardel. Competitors now face a long summer break until the next round in the UK, at Silverstone circuit over the weekend of 11 September.